The Paradox Of “Faking It” To Show Who You Are
Masking is a common practice for autistic people. It usually refers to the use of conscious or unconscious strategies to appear neurotypical and hide neurodivergent traits. If you are just learning about masking (and its counterpoint, unmasking) it can sound a lot like masking is the polar opposite of being authentic, genuine and real. It can also seem like fully unmasking is the one way to be truly authentic. But masking is infinitely more complex than being fake. In some cases, masking can actually be motivated by a drive for authenticity and a desire to show who we really are.
In my own journey, it wasn’t until I recognised masking’s role in my own quest to be genuinely understood by others, that I was able to begin to truly unmask in a way that eases my anxiety and feels both safe and authentic.
This piece explores what masking is and how it can both serve and undermine our ability to communicate authentically.
Discovering I’m a High-Masking Autistic Woman
When I first discovered the term “masking” I was already in my late 30’s. After decades being treated for generalized anxiety disorder with little improvement beyond expanding my resilience to the anxiety, I had been exploring whether other types of neurodivergence might be a factor. I got a late diagnosis for ADHD, but neither anxiety nor ADHD seemed to encapsulate all my challenges. After doing some research, I became suspicious I might be autistic as well. I took an array of diagnostic tests which all indicated autism, and I spent months doing exhaustive research into studies on autism. I had sensory issues, a need for repetition and routine, and an array of difficulties intuitively understanding certain neurotypical social norms and behaviors.
The exhaustion of managing those challenges impacted my life to a serious degree - leaving me unable to hold a full time job or fully care for many of my basic needs, like staying well-fed and hydrated. It seemed like I fit the DSM criteria and I strongly resonated with the culture of autism being discussed online.
Still, while my internal experience fit everything I’d read about being autistic, from the outside, I was told over and over again that I didn’t “seem autistic.”
I was doing all the neurotypical social things. I was making eye contact. I was engaging in cheerful small talk. I was holding my face in an interested smile and nodding periodically at what was being said. While doing these things had always felt intolerably uncomfortable, I had learned early on that they were necessary to avoid being misunderstood or criticized - so I just kept trying to get better at it.
And my social life seemed to be going ok from the outside. I had made many close friends throughout my life. And people even came to me for relationship advice because I had an abundance of insight into social matters, given that I had spent a lifetime researching psychology and social dynamics to try to make sense of things.
Everyone I spoke to thought I couldn’t be autistic and maintain this level of social success. One psychiatrist even laughed in my face at the suggestion, explaining that I couldn’t be autistic because I was married and had been making eye contact with her in the five minutes she had known me. But as I had discovered in my research, this view only reflected ignorance about the diversity of autistic presentations. But being autistic isn't always what the stereotypes make it out to be.
The reality was, I had serious social challenges. I couldn’t really initiate conversations. I was unable to speak in groups where I couldn’t bond over my special interests. I had always made friends with other outsiders, people who thought more like me, people who shared my hobbies.
And most of my friendships were one-on-one dynamics that didn’t translate well into groups. While I had groups of friends at different points in my life, mostly due to circumstances that threw us together, I usually ended up ostracized from them over miscommunications I didn’t understand. I would say something that seemed totally reasonable to me, and find that everyone else was convinced I was communicating some underlying message that was deeply offensive to them. I always tried to explain that that wasn’t what I meant, only to be accused of lying and gaslighting them. It had never made sense to me.
But after immersing myself in the online community of autistic people, I found many women with autism and ADHD had communication profiles –and experiences– similar to mine. And one term kept emerging from these like-minded folks: masking.
What is Masking?
Masking is the use of conscious or unconscious strategies to minimize the appearance of neurodivergent characteristics. It is something relatively common amongst autistic people (especially for those who aren’t white cisgendered men or boys). It can also be found with other forms of neurodivergence like ADHD - although usually to a lesser extent.
After resonating with the descriptions of masking, I decided to take a test, the CAT-Q, which measures the extent to which someone is masking autistic traits. As I scrolled through the questions, I found myself resonating deeply with many of the behaviors being described. I was asked to rate my agreement with statements like:
“I monitor my body language or facial expressions so that I appear relaxed.”
“I have developed a script to follow in social situations.”
“I practice my facial expressions and body language to make sure they look natural”
I kept checking “strongly agree.” Or occasionally I’d check “strongly disagree” for questions like “I rarely feel the need to put on an act in order to get through a social situation.” I always felt the need to put on an act to get through any social situation.
“Doesn’t everyone do this?” I thought to myself as I worked through the test. My results came back 173 out of 175 - almost a “perfect score” for masking. Any score above 100 was indicative of masking autistic traits. So no... Apparently not everyone does this.
Sure, in some cases, neurotypicals (people without any form of neurodivergence) do mask. Professionals report low levels of masking to fit into the culture of their work, for example. But for most neurotypicals, this is limited to specific contexts.
The one exception to this is when neurotypical people experience societal marginalization on the basis of their race, culture, gender expression, or sexuality. The term masking was actually first used to describe the experience black Americans had when being pressured to conform to the norms of white supremacy culture. Folks experiencing these kinds of oppressive contexts often mask more frequently to maintain safety and acceptance - in much the same way that neurodivergent people do. What we share is that doing things in a way that comes naturally to us is deemed unacceptable by mainstream society, or is seen as indicative of some problem or risk. It’s not. But as marginalized groups, we often end up needing to bend to the dominant norms in order to survive and get basic needs met.
As I delved into the behaviors associated with masking, I realized that I was masking literally all the time I was around other humans. Sometimes I was even masking when I was by myself.
I would catch a glimpse of a neutral expression in the mirror and feel disoriented. I’d slightly turn the corners of my mouth into a well-practiced half smile and look back into the mirror - ah - there was the happy person people wanted to see. Even alone, the specter of others’ opinions loomed in my mind, correcting every movement or expression.
In the autistic population, masking scores as high as mine are correlated with generalized anxiety disorder. It is also correlated with burnout, depression and suicidality. I had been masking my entire life - and it had likely been part of why I was unbearably anxious, depressed, and at times, completely burnt out and ruminating on suicidal ideations. Suddenly, all the pieces fit together. Masking was actively harming me. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to unmask. But I would quickly learn that my limited understanding of masking – and unmasking – were holding me back from actually learning how to work with my own neurodivergent mind.
Is Masking Inauthentic?
When I hear the word “masking” I imagine it as wearing a mask, using behaviors to cover over my true identity, to hide what is really under there. And truly, a lot of masking is exactly that. It can be as literal as changing my facial expressions into a mask of calm happy contentment, to hide the panic and chaos actually happening in my mind. And most of the conversation around masking frames it as an attempt to hide someone’s autistic traits.
So, at first, I felt like my lifetime of masking was proof I was the poser I’d always feared that I was. I desperately began searching “under the mask” to find who I really was, and berating myself for my previous inauthenticity.
And sure, in some ways, I wasn’t being entirely authentic. I would hide my distress at sensory triggers to seem stronger and less vulnerable, or mask my unusual habits and reactions to seem more neurotypical when something important was at stake –like safety, a job, school success, or getting access to good medical care.
But searching for the real me wasn’t particularly fruitful. I imagined I could stop masking, and suddenly people could see who I really was. But I quickly discovered that there was no cohesive, easy to unearth, internal self hiding behind my mask.
The truth was, my masks weren’t always about performing a fake version of me that others would like. They were often actually designed to communicate an aspect of my true self, that others were misunderstanding. They were a complex interplay of finding ways to express my authentic internal state while staying safe in a neurotypical society.
Trying to reveal my “true self” by indiscriminately unmasking led others to misunderstand me at unprecedented rates. I experienced stigmatization and lost opportunities. I had some friends fall out of my life. It seemed like unmasking made people understand my true self even less than they had before. I felt confused and depressed –not happier and more relaxed.
But as I delved further into unmasking, I started to identify what masking really means for me, and how intricately it's tied to showing people who I really am. Understanding the true motives behind my masking has been my path to unmasking more safely and learning when unmasking isn’t the right move for me.
Masking As Translating
One of the most important things I learned while unmasking is that much of my masking is actually a form of translating. This type of masking is about finding ways for my most authentic self, my true thoughts, feelings and opinions, to be understood – when I would otherwise be misunderstood.
A good comparison might be an immigrant from another country, speaking in a second language. Moving to a place with a different language and culture means these folks not only have to learn another spoken language, but also the different cultural norms around tone, body language, eye contact, etc. Failure to perfectly replicate these norms can lead to big misunderstandings.
Imagine you come from a culture where people loudly speak over one another, to show their engagement and excitement in a conversation. But you move to a place where the cultural norm is to show engagement by quietly listening and letting the other person get their whole thought out. You might easily be misunderstood as being rude and uninterested if you proceeded to follow your own culture's norms. Everywhere you’d go, you’d try to show your interest, and be misunderstood as showing disinterest and disrespect. To have your true motives understood, you'd need to learn their language, their behavioral norms, and effortfully remember to replicate them in each interaction. This is how my experience is as a neurodivergent person.
My natural communication instincts don’t line up with the neurotypical norms where I live. So being misunderstood is a daily experience.
Often, for me, enthusiasm, interest and a desire to connect is mistaken for argumentativeness. If someone is talking about a topic I am interested in, for example, I often have things to say. I want to share my perspective, and all the data I've collected while I was studying the topic in the past. I want to “infodump” everything in my brain out in one long stream of words or text, giving all the nuance and detail so I'm fully understood.
But neurotypical society tends to view this sharing of information as a show of dominance. People take me to be correcting them, lecturing them, or arguing with them, rather than sharing my perspective and all the interesting things I’ve studied along the way. So, I often mask by rephrasing or cutting back on what I’m saying to try and convey my true motives. I shift my tone, making it more melodic and infused with a happy cadence, because I’m told that my natural tone can sound sarcastic and aggressive. I hold my face in the expressions I’ve learned indicate the emotion that I’m currently feeling.
Performing Who I am
Using masking to translate like this can take on a performative quality. For example, I don’t show pain the way that neurotypical people do. Like many autistic folks, I can be in extreme pain and not make a sound or distressed face. Acute pain hurts me tremendously, but it doesn’t move me to scream or cringe. This has led to some dangerous situations where medical professionals have not believed me when I was in real pain.
The hospital staff didn’t believe I was in active labor with my son. “I’m in serious pain.” I told them, calmly, as a contraction reverberated through my body. They raised their eyebrows and glanced at each other. Then they looked shocked when the machines proved my contractions had escalated.
So, at times I have found myself performing pain, while in pain. I would intentionally scrunch up my face, make little crying sounds, and imitate what a neurotypical person would do in pain… all to demonstrate my very real pain to others.
Or if I am having a conversation where I’m feeling compassion and empathy for someone, my natural instinct is to excitedly share a story about how I went through something similar. While my neurodivergent friends say this makes them feel understood, neurotypicals often see this as self-centered rather than compassionate. So I might intentionally suppress my instinct to share, and instead shift my face and tone, performing my empathy in a way that will be better understood for what it genuinely is.
In both of these cases, I’m masking in order to avoid misunderstandings. It’s not fake that I’m in pain or that I’m empathetic, but if I don’t perform these things in a way that translates to the majority of society, I will be misunderstood.
Again, my masking here serves my desire to be authentic, even though it requires intense effort and ultimately adds to my anxiety. It doesn’t feel like faking it, it feels like translating it into something that can be understood by others.
These steps are effortful everytime, but they help me to translate. They help me to convey what I am actually experiencing internally, when ironically, my natural way of being seems to convey something entirely different.
I wish others would meet us halfway, and learn to translate our natural ways for what they truly mean. And in some of my close relationships, that's the case. But with the majority of society, my options are usually to mask or to be misunderstood.
Different Forms of Masking
Research into autistic masking has found three separate categories of ways that autistic people mask – Compensation, Masking and Assimilation. These are reflected in the Cat-Q measure, which gives scores for each category.
The Masking category includes strategies used to present a less autistic seeming persona to others - such as adjusting body language or expression to seem more relaxed, confident or interested than we are.
The Assimilation category relates to strategies to fit into uncomfortable social situations, such as avoiding socialization, forcing eye contact, relying on support from friends to socialize or performing an act to fit in.
The Compensation category includes strategies used to compensate for the social and communication difficulties in autism. Examples of this include copying facial expressions or mannerisms from others, scripting conversations ahead of time, and learning rules about what is expected in social contexts.
I believe that this “translating” mode of masking that I experience fits best into the compensation category of masking – because I am compensating for the natural differences in communication styles between myself and others. I am trying to communicate effectively through this gap in understanding.
Finding Others Who Speak My Language
Still, these compensations –while designed to show my authentic self – are not free. They cost me a tremendous amount of energy, and I cannot feel fully myself while monitoring my mannerisms to that extent. It’s a catch 22 where I can either be free and open but totally misunderstood, or controlled and performative but better able to communicate my true feelings, personality and motivations.
So it’s a relief when I’m with other neurodivergent folks (at least the ones who think more like me), and my natural way of speaking seems more understood. I don’t have to mask as much to translate for them. They understand me as I am and revel in a back and forth of detailed information on a topic we both enjoy. They don’t seem off-put when my expression is neutral, or when it suddenly bursts into a smile so wide it might look like a grimace. The ebb and flow between neutrality and extreme expressiveness doesn’t throw them off the way it seems to with others.
Autism is defined as having communication deficits, but research actually suggests that it’s slightly more complicated. Autism is a big spectrum, with a wide variety of communication challenges - and some may have challenges like not being able to speak at all. But studies have found that autistic people who have average or above average IQ and verbal abilities can communicate well with each other, successfully conveying information and building rapport at similar rates to non-autistic people. But when these same autistic people try to communicate with non-autistic people our differences become an issue, and ratings for communication and rapport go down. Referred to as “The Double Empathy Problem” research on this suggests that non-autistics have just as much difficulty understanding us, as we have understanding them.
In other words, people with similar brains and ways of processing information tend to understand each other better. We speak the same natural language.
Now, that’s not to say all neurodivergent people, or even all autistic people, communicate the exact same way (although research has found some overlap in the communication styles of autistic people and ADHDers). Even amongst autistic folks there can be big differences with communication. And factors like culture, gender, race, and age can also create communication gaps. But for those who share similar communication patterns, communication can be much easier.
This is likely why many autistic folks seek out other neurodivergent people with similar communication to commune with. Just like those in a foreign country often seek out others who speak their native language. Being able to unmask AND be understood, can be downright blissful. Still, with those who don't ‘speak my language,’ masking, while effortful, is sometimes the only way to convey my true meaning.
I didn’t find this aspect of masking highlighted in many studies on masking - which tended to focus on masking as a way to pass for neurotypical and hide autistic traits. But a few studies do point to communication as a motive for masking.
In one study on the motivations behind masking, the motivation that was most agreed with by the autistic respondents was “To communicate your ideas or work.” Another study found that a strong theme reported by autistic participants was that masking was “the language of NT’s” and while not natural to them, they had to learn it to communicate effectively with neurotypical people.
Authentic Unmasking
Once I realized that my masking wasn’t just about faking it, I stopped trying to find the real me. I realized I actually knew the real me quite well. I had been effortfully translating my authentic self into an external form that others could understand my entire life. I had judged myself, sometimes harshly, for not behaving the way that others expected, and for hiding parts of me that came naturally. But now that I understand the reasons behind my differences, and my reasons for hiding, I can also begin to accept and love my authentic self – at a level I’d never experienced before.
The real challenge wasn’t in finding myself, it was about letting go of trying to be understood by every person I interact with. It was about letting close friends in on what my differences actually mean, so that they could do some of the translating work too. It was about noticing when I was masking and then asking myself if I really needed or wanted to mask in that moment.
Part of my unmasking work is just reducing the amount of time I spend in contexts that trigger masking. If I can restructure my life to mask less, I can prioritize using my social energy with the people I truly care about.
I started this unmasking work by prioritizing alone time. Alone, I could drop the need to translate. Alone, I could dive into the special interests and hobbies and self-care that had always seemed too selfish to prioritize. Now I see this time as my medicine, my path to healing. And it is. When I do this, my anxiety melts away, temporarily reminding me of what my body feels like when I’m not masking.
When I ventured back into the social world with this more relaxed nourished baseline, I started to notice my body’s response to my masking. The familiar signs of my anxiety, tight muscles, a clenched stomach, a cloudy mind, all kicked back into gear when my masking resumed. So I started to opt out of it when I could. I started explaining my sensory issues to people I trust, instead of just hiding them. I started opting into my natural behaviors, and then explaining what they translate to instead of doing a neurotypical performance. I found that many of my friends and family were open to dropping their natural assumptions about what my unmasked tone or expressions meant, and trusting me when I would tell them how I was feeling, verbally. Sure, we still have misunderstandings, but we can correct them with direct communication.
What I learned is that masking isn’t always about hiding myself or being inauthentic, often, it is about being understood.
I’ve also learned that masking is something that impacts each person differently. Some on the autistic spectrum say masking is inextricable from their identity, and they don’t want to stop. Some find it intolerable or impossible and don’t mask at all. Some say it's harmful for them but they don’t know how to stop. Sometimes masking is just harmful and unnecessary. And sometimes we are in a catch-22 where masking harms us, but unmasking harms us even more. So likely only some autistic people will relate to this form of masking as translation.
Wherever you fall on the masking spectrum, it's valid and says very little about your levels of authenticity. It's up to each person to decide when and how they mask or unmask.
I still have times when masking is needed for safety, when I do it automatically, or when I consciously decide that it’s the best way to convey what I mean.
It’s a work in progress. I’m still high-masking. But, recently, I retook the CAT-Q, and my score had gone down to 163, so I’m slowly lowering how much I mask.
I don’t think I’d want to stop masking entirely, because it serves important functions in my life. But restructuring my life to reduce the contexts where masking is warranted or automatic, and masking less with those I trust, has shifted things a lot.
I’ve always tried to be authentic, but now I’m finding less effortful ways to express who I am.
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